Defensive Driving

Latvian stoplights: I barely noticed them for the first 2 weeks I've been here. Today, being my 15th day in Latvia, I noticed them. I'm not sure if it's this way in the rest of post-Soviet Europe or even Europe as a whole, but the lights turn green to yellow to red and instead of going directly from red to green, they turn yellow first. I thought yellow meant 'caution!' but here it means, 'ok, almost time to go! not yet, but in a second!' I'm not really sure I understand the logic of it all; different system I guess. Can you imagine the accidents that would happen in the States from this? While the law book says yellow means 'caution,' the vulgate interpretation is 'quick! you can make it!' and so everyone accelerates. A yellow preceding a green would only make for a mess at every intersection as the North-South traffic sped up to the make the light and simultaneously the East-West traffic tried to be the first off the line. I guess Latvians are just more civilized behind the wheel.

This reminds me of something I learned in an economics class. It has been statistically proven that when people feel more physically secure/safe, they are more reckless and thus more accidents occur. It makes sense. When I first found out that old football players only wore cloth padding and leather helmets I asked my dad if they got hurt a lot. He told me that actually there was less injury because the players weren't as rough with each other then knowing how easily they could get injured. In reference to driving, the study noted that seatbelts and airbags make drivers feel more secure and therefore they are prone to drive faster and more reckless. The real answer to decrease the number of accidents on the street, my professor noted, is to put sharp spikes facing the driver on the steering wheel. Yep, that would do it.